[quote]I met some of my friends out in the wild during D1.[/quote][quote]Make the game an adventure, not just a convoluted chore.[/quote]You met people out in the wild during D1 BECAUSE the game was a chore. People were grinding planetary mats & glimmer for hours to upgrade their gear & unlock the perks on their weapons.

Since Beyond Light i've been mostly f2p (though during the pandemic i eventually did buy beyond Light) and one thing you could almost always do was explore a planet in patrol. I didn't buy witch queen but you could still unlock the planet, do the public events, lost sectors. Same with Shadowkeep, i didn't buy it at first and basically just did the public stuff on the moon. At times expansions dlc had many events in the Tangle Shore as well at times and you could at least sparrow around. Eventually i bought some seasons just cause i spent time screwing around on planets and eventually got some FOMO. It paid off. Come the Final Shape and it's funny. I did the intro mission. And unlike the other dlc it quickly occured to me that there was literally nothing else for me to do in the Final shape other than comp and get the crucible gun. I got one drop ofthe gun and basically stopped playing the game. other DLC's, Witch Queen you could still explore, even get bottom tear invisible chests with the first level of deep sight. Public events, Lots Sectors. Hit chests. It kept people engaged. Now there's far less of that. I think it's strategic mistake. I'll leave with i once went through my D1 and D2 stats by activity. Number 1 most time spent was crucible. Makes sense, i was a pvp main. Number 2 most time spent? was Patrol. I wasn't an raider, didn't grind night falls. I came to Destiny after playing COD multiplayer and GTA. And a ton of GTA is just exploring the world and getting into stuff. That's a big thing i liked about D2. So with pvp for years getting very little love and then removing patrol planets and public patrol there's a lot less for someone like me to do to hold you over to another dlc, season or expansion. Which i think is a strategic mistake in terms of retaining players.

Man, some of the most fun I’ve had on destiny 2 was during escalation protocol on mars. Though it was a work around ,getting about 12-16 guardians to face onslaughts of hive and bosses with crazy amount of health was fun as hell. I’d have the ikelos weapons already and still did it bc it was engaging. Kepler and pale heart seem so barren. It’s pretty jarring running into nobody there. It’d be cool if Patrols had some sort of instance where a plethora of guardians could gather and take on w.e challenge a waits them.

We need a quality social destination and soon!

Imagine if every location, or just most, had a 6 player activity like Escalation or Alters. For those of us that don’t care much about rewards or progress, it’d be great to just jump in and PLAY together, testing weapons and builds for FUN